How's everyone's winter gardens going?
Anthony Leveto
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
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dirtygardener73
7 years agoRelated Discussions
What is everyone going to do over the winter?
Comments (20)I have been drawing new plans for more gardens than i could ever complete in one year!!...Hubby thinks i am looney!!...Trying to find a way to make a "simple" small pond, Connecticut has rocks/stones everywhere you dig!!..Have been looking at my seed/bulb catalogs nightly while i watch TV, i circle what i want, then cross it off again! Can never make up my mind, and oh yeah, i DO have a budget LOL!!...yep. i finally ordered some seeds...Impatiently waiting for there arrival...Had plans to winter sow, but chickened out on that one...And yes I, just like "ButterflyChaser" have ripped up all my carpet, to reveal decent hardwood floors, I also have two dogs, one big shepard, one small yorkie, and two cats..and 2 kids still at home...hate housework too! YUK! what a job taking up that carpet was!!...Currently "re-modeling" my mom's bedroom, she has MS, is wheelchair dependent, and lives with us..Whew...Am getting a hospital bed for her delivered this week, so need to get her room organized, old bed removed, dressers moved, etc...Oh yeah, and i like to take a nap with my little Yorkie when i can :) ..I have also started to read the bible again...still a long way to go on that...lots to understand ..Going back to work next month, finally have home health care for mom, so i can work again..I come to Gweb everyday, love to read the posts, and check out the trades..discovered Round Robins this year and just love them! I am sure you all have TMI (too much information) about me now hahahahahha loved reading about all of the stuff you all are doing!! Winter is almost over!! Blue Skies! Trish...See Morehow's everyones veggie gardens doing.
Comments (12)Tomatoes and squash have been in the ground for a couple of weeks here. I did plant one early girl 6 weeks ago, but here in the north/central hinterlands I've had to cover the tomatoes at night about half the time. Next year I will wait a little longer to plant outdoors. As for the wind we had a couple days ago, that was the first time I've ever covered tomatoes in the daytime. I didn't want to risk having them break off and die, so cover them I did. No losses to date. Figs are begining to break dormancy. The desert king(?) thisisme gave me has 40+ brebas on it allready, and more are popping up all the time. VDB, except for one branch, has apparantly died to the ground, as have five of my other trees. All are sprouting new growth from the roots however. Mulberry trees, which we are trying out for the first time, are putting on new growth, as are the blackberries. Things are shaping up pretty good so far....See MoreHow is everyones gardens after Fay?
Comments (15)My garden is fine. I SFG in raised beds and the only thing I (might) have lost is marigolds. They are pretty well sprawled out right now. My Cavendish Banana which I planted in July did very well in the storm, as did my gardenia and butterfly bushes. I have lost all three of my surviving tomato plants, but they were about done anyway. They will go into compost tomorrow, along with all of my squashes: cucumber, pumpkin and watermelon. All three are stripped of leaves, although I think they lost the fight because of the squash bugs I've been fighting all summer. My roses are great. I have no clue what kind they are, but they were over 8 feet tall before hubby had to cut them to lower the awnings over the front windows. However, they seem to have liked the haircut..and it kept the wind from uprooting them. We didn't have any flooding on our lot, thank goodness. We did have about 3 feet of water in our roads for 3 days, but someone finally found the part to open the locks, so we're dry now. I posted pics of the flooding earlier, but never thought I'd be so darn glad to see blacktop! In other good news, we were lucky all around. We only lost power for about 6 hours total, and not all in one chunk of time. Our phones and cable/internet stayed active throughout the mess. And, everyone here was able to work even during the aftermath. We've been blessed, while other people in our county suffered complete flooding of their homes. I'm thankful that my garden gets to be my biggest worry right now. :)...See Morehow did everyone do with garden journaling
Comments (13)I did a pretty good job of journaling in the 1980s and 1990s, but not so much since then. I think I kept pretty good records for the first 2 or 3 years we lived here in OK, but just got too busy after that. I don't even try to keep track of things on paper or computer or with a camera. I simply make a plan in my head (my plan is simple: grow everything and grow too much of it all), follow my plan, and reap the harvest. I always do start out the canning season with a canning log, keeping track of each batch canned by batch number, type of product canned, date and the number of jars in the batch. That works for a while, but inevitably I get too busy canning and ditch the canning journal at some point....usually in June. I've never bothered keeping records of what I dehydrate, ferment or freeze. I measure the garden year as a success or a lack of success by how much produce we've eaten fresh, by how much I've canned, by how many freezers we've filled up, how many potatoes, onions, winter squash, etc. sit in the cool, dark back corners of the under-the-stairs pantry, etc. I don't mean that I have a count of those items, but rather that I simply know if we have a little, a middling amount or a lot. Most years are massive successes. Last year with its nearly 80" of rain was not so great, and 2011 with the exceptional drought and heat wasn't either, but in every other year, we've raised enough produce and preserved enough of it so that we rarely buy produce at the grocery store, other than things we cannot grow here---like lettuce in July-August, for example. This year? I canned about 500 jars of stuff, filled up two freezers and have a full pantry, so it ranks as a success whether I kept any written records of the year or not. It mostly comes down to time. Any time spent writing things down or logging them on a computer, taking photos, etc. is time taken away from the garden. I'd rather spend time in the garden or in the kitchen preparing the produce for meals or preserving it, so everything else like journaling falls by the wayside. I used to plan my garden out on paper too....drawing little graphs of every raised bed and meticulously planning out the spacing prior to planting. Ha! That fell by the wayside by the mid-2000s. The weather varies so much here from year to year that it is hard to find consistency in when to plant or how much to plant because you have to be able to go with the flow and adapt to whatever weather you have, so I didn't find journaling all that helpful when I did it because one year we might have the last freeze in early February and another year we might be plagued by late freezes through the first week in May, so it is hard to look at years' worth of previous journals and find any consistency to use as a guide. It took me a few years of living here and gardening here in OK to learn that. No two years are ever the same. It keeps life interesting, even unjournaled....See MoreAnthony Leveto
7 years ago
Glenn Jones(9b)
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agoEverbearing mulberry it's hard to see in this pick but its covered in berries
Praying hands banana just coming up
first bloom on this key lime.
Florida Prince peach just starting to bloom. this was much taller i just trimmed out the central leader so it will grow in a more open vase shape.
Waiting for them to ripen
the only flower i have that is blooming.
Anthony Leveto thanked Glenn Jones(9b)Anthony Leveto
7 years agodirtygardener73
7 years agoSilvia, nice little tomatoes! Of course, the rest of your garden is as spectacular as ever. I can't wait to see it in a few years when all those trees mature.
This is all I have by way of tomatoes waiting to be planted right now. Everglades are very overgrown, but will be buried deep, so that's o.k. The other two are Cherokee Purple clones I took right before the freeze "just in case." Not shown is one spindly Supersweet 100 that is destined to be planted out in the outside garden, or in my neighbor's yard, if we can work something out, which I'm sure we can. They want veggies, I need sun. There is also one little red pepper plant hiding in there grown from a store-bought
fruit, so don't know how that will work out, but I'll see, I guess. If it works out, I will be able to grow much more than I am now.
whgille
7 years agoTony, my garden area is small but I manage to fit everything in that I am interested.:)
Good job Glenn!
D, Thank you. I am hardening the tomatoes 5 at a time till I am done with all of them. Hope your new plans for the garden bring you joy and some sun.
More garden views....the back porch planter with mostly succulents.
The front porch with more shadier plants.
Almost there!
One of the violets indoors
Outside a mango
Silvia
Glenn Jones(9b)
7 years agoSatsuma owari,im so happy to have one again first bloom of the year and it smells so good
dirtygardener73
7 years agoGlenn Jones(9b)
7 years ago
Patty Bee Port St. Lucie Zone 10A
7 years agowhgille
7 years agoGlenn, thank you...violets are my daughter's favorite, we have one in every color. It is nice to see blooms on the fruit trees, every day I look for them, one of my peaches started to bloom.
D, thank you, I have those orchids for a long time and they are easy to root, just have to keep them in the shade and moist. Every year I start cuttings for friends and this time I am doing just one pot to give away.
The first 5 tomatoes are transplanted and I will be getting ready 5 at a time, this way is easy.
Silvia
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whgille